Lord Duckhunter

You can't watch a BBC program without a BBC ****** trying to get you to watch a shirts BBC show later in the week/month . Not one person supporting the BBC has explained how it won't continue to survive without tax payers being forced to pay for it. Surely it's so good people will pay . Perhaps deep down they know its pretty much like any other and not a patch on sky. The BBC wants to act like a commercial media company but not conform to commercial free markets . Having to have a licence to watch state owned tv,whether you watch it or not belongs in soviet Russia not a modern 21st century democratic country

It's worse than that. Imagine reading the Guardian but still having to pay for the Sun.

If the BBC is as good and as wonderful as people are making out it'll have no trouble in raising revenue after the digital switchover is complete. It could be on a subscription basis, donations (it's so wonderful I'm sure you'ld all pay), or adverts (they could switch over from the stupid BBC adverts with no loss of programme time).

Did Labour set the minimum wage too low? How do you propose we keep wages in line with the cost of living, impose a price's or a wages policy?

If the BBC is so good, so impartialy, and so "much loved" then it would have no problem raising the licence fee from subscriptions would it? All you people that love the BBC could pay your fees and watch it as much as you want. I could make a decision whether I wanted to watch it and pay for the pleasure without the threat of jail hanging over me. I find it bizzare that in this day and age people are prepared to accept a TV Poll tax, not for watching the BBC, but for owning a TV. And that we are a nation that puts its "subjects" in jail for not paying the said poll tax. I would say "ideological extremists" are people who impose their will on others, and put people in jail who dont conform. Not people who believe in choice and taxes that should reflect peoples ability to pay.

Do people really think the result would have been different,would our centre halfs defended correctly,would we start tackling instead of running beside people. Nigel had a game plan to use rl as an impact player , had we defended right it may have worked.it wasn't the forward line that aas wrong . Had jrod missed a few people may have a point,but he did a pretty decent job . We are in the top flight and Lambert is a massive reason for that, but he is not that good that he's undropable.

We were told Fat Sam was a crap manager that wasn't good enough for Saints. Now there's posts saying Redknapp had no input into Spurs' last couple of really good seasons. There is no point in getting rid of Nigel and then repacing him with another bloke with no or limitted top flight experiance. 2 weeks ago I would have said "keep him", now I'm on the fence. We need to win 2 out of the next 3 and stop making the same mistakes over and over again for him to have any chance of seeing Xmas in the job IMO. Replacement should be someone who can grind points out when we're playing badly, someone who can set a team up to be hard to beat and somebody who commands the respect of the players the minute he walks in the dressing room.Benetiz ticks all 3 boxes, yet some of the experts on here dont seem to want him.

90k would be a fat cat if he was a Tory & £2mil house would be a "mansion" if "Dr" Cable gets his way. To quote Red Ed, you're "sticking up for the wrong people"

Ask him why Cortese signed him but plays him out of position.

Spot on. When I went to school their were 2 coloured brothers in a school of 900 odd pupils. That was it. Now my lad has a Turkish friend, a Polish one and one from puerto rico. We shouldn't pat ourselves on the back too much though, look at parts of Scotland and NI where relegious intolerance is just as bad as any Eastern European racism.

The first thing he should do is set the wheels in motion for a vote on an English Parliament. It's a disgrace that the Jocks and Taffs get devolved powers that are denied the English. Scottish MP's could vote for increased perscription charges in England, knowing that their voters wont have to pay it. There are whole areas of life that Welsh and Scottish MP's can vote on free from the constraints of having it impact their voters, that's a funny sort of accounability. Labour thinking that they would always have a majority in Wales and Scotland, were quite happy to let them govern themselves. Not the English, god forbid, they might vote Tory. Can you imagine the outcry from the sweaty's if Maggie had devolved powers to England and not Scotland during one of her landslide Parliaments? If Tory MP's sat in leafy Surrey could vote on Sweaty health care that didn't concern their voters? Yet us English just sit there and take it. If Cameron was so concerned about the UK, so concerned with fairness, then he needs to adress the situation. Because the lack of fairness towards the people who sign the cheques will cause more tension in the Union that a rable of Bravehearts wanting to govern themselves.

What about slappers jumping on the band wagon, where's it going to end? What about this women? She was so traumatised by her affair with Peel, that she wrote to him asking for him to open her new bar. She said she was 15 but " he didn’t ask and I didn’t tell him.", before adding "I don’t know if sex was expected but I went along with it willingly." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9603959/John-Peel-got-15-year-old-pregnant-after-meeting-at-Black-Sabbath-concert-claims-woman.html The poor innocent girl, "Mrs Nevin went on to become a bunny girl croupier at the Playboy club in Park Lane in the 1970s." She looks so innocent at 17 in the pic. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216453/John-Peel-got-pregnant-I-15-Woman-claims-month-affair-DJ.html

Which was oringinally in the Daily Mail, or Hail or Fail or whatever the lefties call it. Normally a Daily mail article receives abuse on here, obviously packaging it up and repeating it in the Guardian makes it "interesting".

Tours were like roman orgies, with women being passed from band member to band member, loads of women. Do we really expect 20 something year olds to check id's before each penetration?

Nobody is saying anything of the sort, certainly not me. What I am saying is that a perk of the job as a Rock star in the 60’s & 70’s was groupies hanging around. As I said on an earlier post my favourite singer Richard Manuel used to get the roadies to go out into the queue of waiting girls and take their pictures. Richard would then decide who to “invite” backstage. Did he also ask the roadie to check id’s? I seriously doubt it. If he then banged a 15 year old without realising, does that make him a peado? Maybe he owed the girls a “duty of care”, but the guy was an alcoholic and heavy drug user, I doubt it ever crossed his mind. Would I want my 15 year old daughter given a rock star a blow job, of course not. But, then I wouldn’t want her doing it at 17, 18 or 35. Your argument seems to be, if she’s 15 and her birthday is midnight, you’re a peado at 11.50pm, but not at 00.05. My opinion is there is a massive difference in a star taking advantage of a groupie he fancys who turns out to be 15 , than in a man doing so on the basis that she is 15.

Groupies have always existed and I doubt very much that id was asked for or produced. It's part of rock and roll, what do you want a load of One Direction type bands. Whats so unacceptable about a star receiving favours from a groupie, both know what the score is.Unless these young girls thought they were going to become the next Yoko Ono and be the star's soul mate forever?

I watched The Daily Politics yeasterday. Andrew Neil is easily the best political interviewer around and makes polictians of all parties very uncomfortable with his akward questions. He asked Boris a lot of "no win" type questions (as he does) and Boris waffled a bit (as all polictians do). When Neil pointed out he wasn't answering the questions Boris said "I have to commend you on your tough line of questioning Andrew". It was only a little thing, but it came across as natural (well natural to Boris) and natural is what the public like about their MP's. He is a toff, comes over as a toff, but it's him. Cameron is a toff, who is trying to fool people that he isn't and failing miserable. The only politicans who has managed to pull off that trick in my lifetime was Tony Blair.He went to Scotland's poshest school, then Oxford, but managed to convince people he was one of them.Anthony Charles Lynton Blair became good old Tony and managed to reinvent himself as one of the plebs.

As we've seen from the Peel quotes, this was considered a "perk" of the job. No doubt the music idustry has a lot of dark secrets, where stars have taken advantage of their fame to use and abuse groupies and young girls. The media's response is very selective. Bill Wyman was banging a 14 year old, I wouldn't want Michael jackson baby sitting my kids, and the same week the witchhunt against saville was in full flow, Townsend was being interviewed by the very same media outlets. It's not new. The killer, Jerry Lee Lewis was married to his 13 year old cousin, Elvis met Preiscilla when she was 14. If you read Bill Graham's book most of the acts he promoted in the 60's & 70's were taking advantage of girls, hell it's one of the reasons blokes got into rock and roll. I laughed at Janet Street Porters outrage on question time, ranting about "some of the things going on in dressing rooms" before adding "although perfectly legal". Just because no star would want a blow job off her with those teeth, she seemed to find it all very distasteful. I find it strange that people are so outraged that stars took advantage of young women, what will be the next great revelation, that some stars took drugs or some were **** heads?

Would you accept this defence from a normal member of the public?

Look at the fuss the lefties made when it was withdrawn from millionaires, so it's always going to remain. You make a good point though. Child benefit is a handout, the less people that rely on government handouts the better, in my opinion.

Why on earth accept a caution and be placed on the sex offenders register then? I repeat, would you be so understanding if the "offense" was committed by a normal member of the public?

Sorry, but accepting a caution is accepting guilt. How many people would accept a caution for this type of crime if they were innocent? It seems that Saville is guilty, despite not having the chance to defend himself. But Townsend is innocent despite having the chance to prove his innocence , but accepting his guilt and being placed on the sex register. This "researching for a book" defence is interesting. Do we accept that defence from anybody or just famous people?

Correct, that was the final nail in the coffin for Private Companies FSS. Would Gordon have acted in the same way, if the consequences were the same for public sector pensions? The Times got a FOE ruling to allow treasury advice given to Brown in 1997-The confidential papers revealed advisers had forewarned him it could leave a "big hole" in pension funds. Ed Balls said at the time that it was "the best thing for long-term investment in the economy."

If we had signed Billy S in the summer, people would be jumping up and down about a lack of ambition and saying he wasn't premiership quality. Lambert has the touch of a premiership player and passes the ball like one. He also strikes a great ball, the only doubt anyone had about his ability to play in the top flight is his lack of pace. Billy S, nice bloke that he appears to be, is a championship player. Jay Rod and Mayuka could become decent premiership players, Billy never will .

It's funny how Pete Townsend got to close the Olympics, despite accepting a caution for looking at kiddie porn. Are people waiting for him to die before registering their outrage?